Although no students have been caught in Minnesota as yet, no one doubts that kids are soaking Gummi bears with booze or finding other creative ways to get drunk.

“We talked about it at our last meeting,” said Ann Lindberg, chemical health coordinator for the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan School District in Dakota County. “I’m sure it is happening here to some degree. We just haven’t caught anyone at it yet.”

Well in that case, although she hasn’t been caught, we talked about it at the last meeting and we have no doubt that Ann Lindbery spends her evenings paying hookers to blow coke blown up her asshole . I’m sure it is happening to some degree, but we just haven’t caught her doing it yet.

I love how the gummi bears story repeats without attribution the vodka tampon method and the alcohol “eyeballing” method.
2 minutes of searching and you’ll find out that both methods are painful and too slow to get you drunk any faster than just, you know, drinking some booze.
Were any of these adults ever teenagers? Scoring a six pack of beer or a bottle of vodka was the more difficult part. And that wasn’t particularly difficult. Actually drinking the stuff was the easy part.

That woman’s son died in police custody mainly because he thought it’d be a good idea to steal a municipal dump truck and then led the police on a multi-county chase and made them use a spike strip and then chase him into the woods.

I mean, obviously those cops are animals and should have given him medical attention, but FFS, it’s not like the 21 year old thief is a blameless victim of unforeseen circumstance.

It’s also not like he was gonna be the next Einstein. Sad for his mom, but I think society will be able to muddle along without him.

Regarding the Romney story; I still say wiping out the emails was the smart thing to do, and that if it is illegal the law needs to be changed. Further, how much money in public funds would get wasted if the emails still existed for political opponents and reporters to wade through, looking for who-knows-what? I’m not a huge Romney fan, but this strikes me as a petulant attempt to turn a non-story into a story by Romney opponents who are offended that he isn’t stupid enough to help them hang him.

The official e-mails of a governor and his/her staff are matters of public record that document the decisions made in running the state. They’re supposed to be kept around as evidence, not smear fodder. I’ll accept the latter if it means preserving the former.

You really think keeping government officials transparent is petulant? Looking for “who-knows-what?” I don’t know Corruption? Bad governing style? Something illegal? Do you really think government officials should be able to keep what they do in office, while on the taxpayer dime, secret?

Government emails are supposed to be saved and archived to keep government accountable. Same with memos, letters, and the minutes of government meetings. When compared to the alternative–letting government officials operate in secret–the harm caused by a political opponent taking something out of context for election fodder seems rather trivial.

Further, how much money in public funds would get wasted if the emails still existed for political opponents and reporters to wade through, looking for who-knows-what?

Indeed, why waste money on any records at all.

Records of government activities should be preserved because its the right thing to do. We should hold people accountable for their activities in office, and I’d really like for future historians to have access to these emails – avoiding the “doomed to repeat history” and all that.

Let’s put this in perspective. A group of people made a blanket statement that a certain demographic is breaking the law based on a rumor and no concrete evidence. This is not the same as say “the scary black man with reefer madness coming for the white women” fear mongering of the past, but prejudice is what it is. Bottom line, teenagers are a group of people that it is still ok to shit on and treat like criminals with little fear of societal outrage.

A caveat on the Marist poll: there is no indication of how Huntsman or Santorum would fare against Obama. Likely because they are polling so poorly, but that’s beside the point. Most polls I’ve seen have Huntsman beating Obama, probably by a large margin. So while Paul may have more crossover appeal than most of the Republican candidates, Huntsman seems the best bet to steal lots of Democratic votes.

“Dr. Dan Quan of the Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix had not heard of so-called drunken Gummi bears. But as an emergency room doctor, he is familiar with the use of vodka-infused tampons.

A couple years ago, he said, the daughter of a nurse reported that a friend passed out at her high school from alcohol poisoning after inserting a vodka-soaked tampon.”

Essentially true, I guess, because if he wasn’t an ER doctor, he might not know the nurse whose daughter who “reported that a friend” did this. But he might have gotten it from his wife’s hairdresser’s cousin.

In reference to the above, I might also point out that at one of our local high schools, there were “reports” that a student was arrested for making C4 at vo-tech. He actually had been busted for having a pocket knife and some weed.

Shody work leads to shody outcomes. If the folks in Mississippi would demand better from their State Prosecutors as the Supreme Court of Mississippi has done in ordering a new trial, these types of outcomes won’t continue to happen. As long as Allgood is in office you can expect more of the same! He’s a shody DA now and always has been. His shit has finally come home to roost and the Supreme Court is calling him out on it! KUDO’s to the Court for their diligence and discretion! Allgood needs a few good comeuppances! Perhaps with a few more of them folks will finally realize what a dirt bag he really is.

Sadly though, the dumb-downed folks in Mississippi keeping voting this jerk back in!

“DEA has laundered millions of dollars from Mexican drug cartels. Hey, why not! It’s our policy that made them rich in the first place. Not to mention that we’re also arming them.”

What a racket they having going on. I’ve completely lost track
of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys…
I think the upshot is, the more we (USA) can play up this faux-war,
the more we can profit from it.

OK; those of you who don’t like my position (for which I respect you, but disagree), how (by both degree and kind) is mandating the preservation of emails different from requiring that the administrative offices be bugged and the recordings made a matter of public record? I’ll admit that my emails are perhaps more causal than those of a full time desk-jockey, but emails strike me as less formal than paper correspondence. If it becomes a matter of policy to preserve the emails – casual interactions – of administration workers, what kind of people are we going to be able to get for those jobs?

I’m not absolutely convinced I’m in the right here. Convince me that I’m not.

As pointed out in #36, there is no expectation of privacy regarding email communications. Your “bug” analogy isn’t the same as long as you mean the bugging is a covert act, and thus you would have an expectation of privacy regarding audio (or visual) communications.

Private companies and public institutions usually have logon disclaimers designating the email policy (as well as other policies regarding use of their computers). They might also have courses and HR orientation regarding such use. FOIA requests have become so prevalent that most everyone should know by now that their email communications offer no guarantee of privacy. Romney certainly knew this, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to the lengths he did to delete the emails. I don’t necessarily have a problem with Romney buying the hard drives (other than using public funds); however, I have a huge problem with deleting the emails off the servers. I wonder if he was thorough enough and deleted any backups.

As #15 said, maintaining a record of past emails is for purposes other than a fishing expedition by opponents. For all we know, they could contain evidence that could be used to exonerate an individual x number of years from now, and have nothing to do with Team Red/Blue politics.

Even if Romney had mostly libertarian views, I doubt I could vote for someone who does this kind of crap. Mike Huckabee did the same thing.

I have no problem with the leaking of the Climategate emails. I would also have no problem if the people who had sent them had erased them, and there was nothing there. The real issue that I have with the Climategate nitwits is that they are supposed to be scientists, and as such they are supposed to be willing to share raw data, so that others can check their work, and they have consistently stonewalled.

Everybody else; you have good points. I think, on reflection, that you are probably right, and my gut reaction was wrong. I still have doubts about the kind of people who are willing to work in that kind of fishbowl, but then I’m 50, and my parents were even older than that would suggest, since they were in their mid 30’s when I was born. I didn’t grow up with email, and probably consider it more ephemeral than it really is. I was raised by people accustomed to far more privacy from prying fools than we enjoy today. And, of course, if the emails are open for examination by upright sensible people, they are also open for examination by fools.

I still think that the public purse will be less hard hit by the deletion of the emails (if it cost just $100,000) than by a media feeding frenzy over undeleted emails, but that’s probably a price we should pay.

If, and I say *IF*, deleting the emails was legal (which, from what I’ve read on this story isn’t settled), though, I think that what the deletion proves is that Romney isn’t an idiot.

Why is there never any mention of Forrest Allgood and Judge Jim Kitchens in the Mary Sue Shields case, when criticising the malicious prosecution and judicial misconduct that was evident in sending her to prison for life without parole.

Shields was found guilty of first degree murder for having defended herself from a drunken assilant on the dancefloor at a Columbus city jukejoint on a New Yeras Eve night.

Dr. Haynes testified for the prosecution, claiming that the stress from the barfight caused his heart attack, while admitting that the “victim” suffered from heart disease. The only “wepon” used in the barfight was a broken barstool leg.

Dr. Haynes testified for the prosecution, claiming that the stress from the barfight caused the assailant’s heart attack, while admitting that the assailant suffered from chronic heart disease. The only “weapon” used in the barfight was a broken barstool leg.